


Picture Yourself, Mind Like A Switchblade

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 09:18:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Picture yourself, mind like a switchblade,<br/>heart doubled over in pain,<br/>you let your body overflow.</p>
<p>Songfic! For Black Lab's Ecstasy</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picture Yourself, Mind Like A Switchblade

_Picture yourself  
Mind like a switchblade   
Heart doubled over in pain   
You let your body overflow _

John Watson sat on the dusty floor of 221B. He just sat. He stared at the union jack pillow on his armchair, with his back to that horrid leather chair which he hated with every fiber of his being and he stared so hard he could have sworn he heard Sherlock’s steady, rhythmic breathing behind him. But he didn’t. It was just the wind and he knew that.

He closed his eyes.

He felt his body melt away and he could feel every floorboard, every speck of dust. He became the flat and the flat became him. He could feel the vibrations coming up the stairs. He couldn’t possibly have, but somehow he knew they were going to come today, at this hour. (Little did he know he’d been sat there for 3 hours, concentrating so deeply the world passed him by.)

_Hide your instinct good and deep  
As the world just goes to hell   
Throw my clothes out in the street   
And hang me on your wall _

He hears the footsteps come up to the door. Hears the door softly unlatch. Sits there. There’s a kind of devilish sanctity about this unrehearsed ritual. The coat hook squeaks. Two shoes are removed, ditched along the way to the downstairs bedroom. Silk rustles to the floor.

The footsteps carry on. They don’t acknowledge him. John stays there on the floor, sitting primly cross-legged, eyes firmly closed. He does not move. At some point the relief hits him like a punch to the gut.

_Cause everyone's in ecstasy  
Underneath it all   
And everybody's lonely   
No one there at all _

John woke up stiff. His tailbone had probably bruised from its contact with Sherlock’s ridiculous axminster. And Sherlock should really clear up his damn mess, really, leaving his shirt on the floor in the living room, it was just bloody childish.

John started to his feet, teetered unsteadily. The room swam around him for a few seconds once he’d righted himself, and he had to support himself on a chair on his way out of the room. It was dark, but he felt his way down the hallway to Sherlock’s bedroom. He’d slept there every night for the last few weeks (and several days as well), since St. Bart’s.  
John’s hand was on the door when he realized he could hear soft snoring from inside. His mind went into overdrive. The clothes on the floor. The door opening. The footsteps outside. The sounds played over in his mind in reverse, then forward again. He stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds that stretched into aeons. Then, by the same strange subconscious involuntary process that had led him to sit on the floor in the living room, he sat on the ground with his back against Sherlock’s door, as if he was guarding it, though he wasn’t sure what from.

He fell asleep again.

_And each song leads to one more song  
The future on your back   
I guess i should feel lucky just to   
Get to be your past _

John wakes up to the sound of Sherlock playing the violin. It’s the song Sherlock composed for The Woman when she faked her death. How apt. John can see the sun peeking in through the living room. He gets up.

He opens the door, and just stands in the doorway. Sherlock turns around and suddenly John feels like he’s under a microscope, being inspected, poked, pried at, but he stares back undeterred. He will get an answer. Seconds tick by. Minutes. John wants something. Anything. And admission, an apology, a comment about how the bed was clearly slept in and no longer smelled like Sherlock. A demand that John explain why he was wearing Sherlock’s bathrobe. Nothing. Sherlock just stares and stares and stares, and John feels like he’s not even being looked at, but looked through.

Eventually, John lets out a sigh. He glares at Sherlock as best he can, and trudges towards the bed (still warm), and gets in. Sherlock goes back to playing the violin. A lullaby, this time.

At length the music stops. John isn’t asleep, but he pretends to be because it’s easier even though he knows he’s not fooling either of them. Sherlock gets into the bed. They don’t touch, but the weight on the other side of the bed is reassurance enough. John lets his mind slip off; they can talk later (he knows the likelihood of that is slim; they’ll just pretend it never happened, and John will explode in a few days). John drifts away.

_And i never saw your world come down,  
That familiar sound.   
And i never thought you would pull me down,   
That the world would pull me down._

John woke a couple of hours later to Sherlock latched on to his side with his arms and legs, whimpering violently and muttering apologies and half-coherent explanations in his sleep, and something about a squash ball. John rubbed gentle circles into Sherlock’s shoulder blades for a while until they both settled into a deep, dreamless sleep.


End file.
